<img src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/digital/images/services_bbc4.jpg" alt="" /> <small>Here is the link to the BBC4 website</small>

BBC4: What about the big picture? The launch of BBC4 will bolster the corporation’s flagging coverage of the arts. But is it a sign of the BBC’s commitment to catering for all tastes, or a dumping ground for programmes that lack mass appeal? Bryan Appleyard reports in The Sunday Times.

What we’re doing here,” says a confident Roly Keating, controller of BBC4, “is opening up a new space, not closing down the old space.”

“It’s just another example of the amoebic, spreading tendencies of the BBC,” says an incandescent John Hambley, chief executive of the digital arts channel Artsworld. “I mean, what is BBC2 for if it’s not the sort of stuff they’re putting on BBC4? Instead, they’re just filling BBC2 with gardening and DIY shows.”

Stuart adds: I have just received a booklet through the post about BBC4 and was surprised to see that dance got hardly any look in. Here is an e-mail I sent to the BBC on this theme:

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As an Arts lover, and in particular a dance fan, I read this booklet with anticipation. Dance, including ballet, has been neglected on the BBC in recent years and I was looking forward to a new channel which would redress this situation.

My disappointment was immense when I only found the word 'dance' once in the whole booklet, included in the section on 'Music', not a suitable category in my view. Out of some 15 arts programmes described not one was a dance event.

If this is the way that the schedulers are looking at the art form then it does not bode well for coverage on the new channel.

Still it's early days and i hope that this early neglect of one of the art forms where the UK excels today will be remedied in the near future.

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If you want to e-mail the BBC about dance programming, here is the link to the feedback page.

[This message has been edited by Stuart Sweeney (edited February 24, 2002).]

Good for you, Stuart! It's just ridiculous the way Dance always seems to be the afterthought when it comes to the Arts. Thinking in the Arts bit of the BBC seems to go something like this. "Music, fine art, opera, drama of course. Throw in a bit of video based performance art and a programme or two about why cartoons are the new Rembrandt, just to ring the changes. Oh, and include something self-consciously controversial which will provoke lots of lovely complaints from Middle England, just to show we're not afraid to challenge the status quo." Dance? No chance.

<B>Betrayed by the Beeb</B> <BR>Arts and culture now have a whole channel to themselves. So why isn't Stuart Jeffries, for The Guardian, celebrating? <P><BR>Tonight the BBC launches the biggest innovation in cultural broadcasting for a generation. That, at least, is what Roly Keating says. He's the controller of BBC4, the corporation's new channel, and plans to offer people who own digital televisions an enriching experience from 7pm every evening. <P>"Each evening you might drop in to enjoy the best in contemporary documentary, music, theatre or international cinema," he says. "You could check out the day's news from a global viewpoint, or discover engrossing new films about history, people, politics, culture and the arts. And you could seek out the pleasures of intelligent discussion." <P>This is all very well, but wasn't I supposed to have access to all those things already on BBC1 and BBC2? Or have those one-time bulwarks of public service television changed so massively and so quickly? <P><A HREF="http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4365984,00.html" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A>

Some helpful advice on digital and what you need to get BBC4<P><B>Going Digital With The BBC</B><BR>from londondance.com<P><BR>The BBC will be launching a new arts channel called BBC Four on 2nd March offering programmes on new and unfamiliar themes in the arts, science, history and global current affairs, primetime screenings of the best of cinema, theatre, documentaries and nightly international news. But many of us don’t have access to digital TV and so will be left with our five terrestrial channels. However, according to the BBC website, obtaining digital TV may not be as expensive or involved as you might have thought.<P><A HREF="http://www.londondance.com/Content.asp?Level=2&Subsection=745" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><P>***************************************<P>A Welsh perspective on the BBC4<P><B>BBC Four comes alive as the `thinking' channel</B><BR>from icWales<P> <BR>THE maxim that "everybody needs a place to think" expresses perfectly the aims behind the BBC's new digital arts and cultural channel, BBC Four.<P>It has certainly set us thinking in BBC Wales, because we are to share a big commitment to the cultural life of Britain through BBC Four, illustrated by the launch on Sunday night which included our recording of Welsh National Opera's Madam Butterfly by Puccini.<P>Soon to follow will be broadcasts of the innovative and intriguing performance by Bjork at the Opera House, a triple bill from Birmingham Royal Ballet and various other performance programmes from all over the UK, made by the music department here at BBC Wales. <P><A HREF="http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0300business/0100news/page.cfm?objectid=11676391&method=full&siteid=50082" TARGET=_blank><B>click for more</B></A><BR>

The BBC is acquiring a stake in an Anglo-Dutch music and television production company in a commercial tie-up for distri-buting arts programmes.

The corporation is taking a 12.5 per cent shareholding in Opus Arte, the specialist producer of arts and classical music programmes and DVDs, in a breakthrough deal agreed by BBC Worldwide, the commercial arm of the state-funded broadcaster.

Terms of the partnership are likely to face close scrutiny by the BBC's critics, who have accused the corporation of using licence fee income to underpin commercial ventures. But senior BBC management argues such tie-ups have already enabled BBC Worldwide to finance its own operations and return cash to its parent broadcaster.

A senior BBC producer has accused programme makers of relegating music and dance to the "high art arena" and has called for a more innovative approach to give arts programming mass appeal.

Hollywood and the advertising industry have succeeded in adapting music, verse and dance to popular taste where television has so far failed, according to Fiona Morris, an executive producer for BBC Wales.

"As arts programme makers, we often tend to ignore how appropriate and immediate a connection we can make if we collaborate with dancers, singers, choreographers, composers and other performance artists in producing mainstream television programmes," Ms Morris said.

I think BBC is on the entirely wrong track here. After CNN/FOX/CBS/ABC the BBC is like a beath of fresh air, and although i am sure there are hard fiscal realities driving their desire to mimic the mass media giants listed above, I think that they should take a different tact and try to develop ways to present the classics in different ways rather than destroy the classics. Surely in todays digital world there is a way to capture ballet and dance in a unique way without turning everything into a Pepsi Commercial. Camera angles/perspective/sound - all of these could be up for grabs in the upcoming digital world, but do we have to make evverything a commercial enterprise?

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